Book review: The Gay Revolutn: the Story of the Stggle, by Lillian Farman – Rabow Round Table Book and Media Reviews

Contents:

• THE GAY REVOLUTN
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• ‘THE GAY REVOLUTN,’ BY LILLIAN FARMAN
• GAY RIGHTS
• BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE, BY LILLIAN FARMAN
• BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE
• TEACHG “THE GAY REVOLUTN” IN THE CLASSROOM
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

THE GAY REVOLUTN

He and his team had terviewed 5, 300 men, askg each of them over three hundred qutns: the Ksey Study found that 46 percent of Amerin mal admted that as adults they’d “reacted” sexually to both mal and femal; 37 percent admted to havg had at least one homosexual “experience” as an adult; 10 percent said that as adults they’d been “more or ls exclively homosexual” for at least three years. 13 Four years later, horrified (as they’d expected to be) by what the study told about homosexuals and their “victims, ” the legislators passed a nstutnal amendment that created a Department of Alholic Beverage Control and add a sectn to the Bs and Profsns Co that said that a liquor license uld be revoked if a place was a “rort” where “sexual perverts” ngregated.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Yet there was almost no public prott among gay bar-goers when Pearl’s was lost; nor when the North Coastal Area admistrator of the ABC, Sidney Feberg, clared a “vigoro” mpaign to revoke the licens of all gay tablishments the regn. Though wealthy wh, pecially femal, didn’t generally get arrted and mted to state hospals for beg homosexual, as did people like Thomas Earl and Eldridge Rhos, they weren’t unsthed by the wispread assumptn that homosexualy was a sickns and need curg. Their knowledge on the subject me mostly om popular media—magaz such as the wily read Collier’s, which lled homosexualy “the biggt taboo, ” and associated wh “sexual maladjtment and sex crim that twist the liv of tens of thoands of people to patterns that are as piful as they are ugly.

E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. ) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power.

In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons.

‘THE GAY REVOLUTN,’ BY LILLIAN FARMAN

In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women. In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act. In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly.

Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.

This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat.

GAY RIGHTS

At the lol and natnal levels, the number of openly gay policians creased dramatilly durg the 1990s and 2000s, and 2009 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir beme prime mister of Iceland, which ma her the world’s first openly gay head of ernment.

In Ai, Asia, and Lat Ameri, openly gay policians have had only limed succs wng office; notable electns to natnal legislatur clud Patria Jiménez Flor Mexi (1997), Mike Waters South Ai (1999), and Clodovil Hernans Brazil (2006). Other issu of primary importance for the gay rights movement sce the 1970s clud batg the HIV/AIDS epimic and promotg disease preventn and fundg for rearch; lobbyg ernment for nondiscrimatory polici employment, hog, and other aspects of civil society; endg the ban on ary service for gay and lbian dividuals; expandg hate crim legislatn to clu protectns for gays, cludg transgenr dividuals; and securg marriage rights for same-sex upl (see same-sex marriage). Ary’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (1993–2011), which had permted gay and lbian dividuals to serve the ary if they did not disclose their sexual orientatn or engage homosexual activy; the repeal effectively end the ban on homosexuals the ary.

Bee of such works, the broad ntours of Farman’s narrative will be faiar to many rears — the wch hunts of the 1950s; the early homophile movement driven by anizatns like the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis; the Stonewall rts of 1969; the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn’s classifitn, the 1970s, of homosexualy as a mental disorr; the AIDS crisis; the crimalizatn of sodomy; the implementatn and repeal of the ary’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy; and the ph for marriage Farman’s book populat even the faiar rners of gay history wh new and vivid life.

BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE, BY LILLIAN FARMAN

“The Gay Revolutn” tak up the major antagonists and protagonists of the movement — the stori of Ana Bryant and Harvey Milk are particularly ronant — but this is also a self-nscly rtorative acunt, markg the ntributns of figur, straight and gay, who are ls well known. Jeanne Manford, who helped start Parents and Friends of Lbians and Gays after one of her gay sons died of a dg overdose and another was btally beaten, “opened a whole new rhetoric” by transformg “the outst homosexual to somebody’s child, a member of the fay.

Army service World War I, Gerber was spired to create his anizatn by the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, a “homosexual emancipatn” group ’s small group published a few issu of s newsletter “Friendship and Freedom, ” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter.

BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE

Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels. Addnally, 1948, his book Sexual Behavr the Human Male, Aled Ksey proposed that male sexual orientatn li on a ntuum between exclively homosexual to exclively Homophile Years In 1950, Harry Hay found the Mattache Foundatn, one of the natn’s first gay rights group. ”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze.

Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review.

TEACHG “THE GAY REVOLUTN” IN THE CLASSROOM

That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr followg year, Print Dwight D.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

”In fear of beg shut down by thori, bartenrs would ny drks to patrons spected of beg gay or kick them out altogether; others would serve them drks but force them to s facg away om other ctomers to prevent them om 1966, members of the Mattache Society New York Cy staged a “sip-”—a twist on the “s-” protts of the 1960s— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue.

They were nied service at the Greenwich Village tavern Juli, rultg much publicy and the quick reversal of the anti-gay liquor Stonewall Inn A few years later, 1969, a now-famo event talyzed the gay rights movement: The Stonewall clanste gay club Stonewall Inn was an stutn Greenwich Village bee was large, cheap, allowed dancg and weled drag queens and homels the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn. " This sign was wrten by the Mattache Society–an early anizatn dited to fightg for gay reportg the events, The New York Daily News rorted to homophobic slurs s tailed verage, nng the headle: “Homo Nt Raid, Queen Be Are Stgg Mad. 1 / 12: NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagChristopher Street Liberatn Day Shortly after the Stonewall uprisg, members of the Mattache Society spl off to form the Gay Liberatn Front, a radil group that lnched public monstratns, protts and nontatns wh polil officials.